Destruction Warlock Guide – Legion 7.3.2

Welcome to the Destruction Warlock Guide for World of Warcraft: Legion, updated for Patch 7.3! Originally written by Pyromancer but will now be maintained by Loozy. You can find me on my Twitter or on the Warlock Discord.

What makes Destruction Warlock Special

Fantasy: Unlike other Warlocks, who delight into the slow and painful suffering of their foes, those who command the power of destruction favor incantations of pure chaos and excessive aggression in battle. In this regard, Destruction Warlocks would probably find themselves more in a kinship with Fire Mages than other Warlocks - if not for their propensity to make use of magic deemed detestable by all mage orders. Destruction Warlocks are versed in discharging an array of shadow, fel, fire, and chaos magic upon opponents, that rattle their souls and conflagrate their bodies. They require little motivation for the havoc they wreak, happy to delight in the opportunity to watch the world burn around them.

Resources: Destruction Warlocks consume Mana to generate Soul Shards, used to unleash powerful strikes of chaos or rain hellfire upon their foes.

Mobility: Dämonisches Tor is baseline for all Warlocks. They can also talent into Brennender Ansturm, a sprint that increases their movement speed at the cost of their own life, and Dämonischer Zirkel, allowing them to set up a circle and later on port back to it.

Artifact Weapon: After his defeat at the Brunnen der Ewigkeit, Sargeras immediatly started planning his next method of infiltrating Azeroth. One that required minimal warning for the defenders of Azeroth. The Szepter des Sargeras was created through incredible effort by hundreds of Sargeras' servants, and can rip open dimensional gateways between worlds. Feats of this weapon include being used by the shaman Ner'zhul to open the portals that resulted in the destruction of Draenor, leaving behind the shattered realm of Outland.

Changes in 7.3

Changes in 7.2.5

Patch 7.2.5 brings a long awaited shard rework. In the olden days, Destruction Warlock functioned off a build and burn playstyle that involved gaining "Ember Bits" to obtain a "Burning Embers," which were spent on things like Chaosblitz, Schattenbrand and Feuer und Schwefel. While Schattenbrand and Feuer und Schwefel won't be returning as baseline spells, our shards are being transformed into a newer version of Burning Embers.

Spell Changes

NEW We will now have 5 Seelensplitter that are broken into 10 segments called "Soul Shard Fragments."

NEW Instead of Feuersbrunst generating a full shard, it now generates 5 Soul Shard Fragments, doubled by targets affected by Verwüstung.

What does this do to our playstyle? Frankly, not that much. It will make our generation of Seelensplitter a bit slower, meaning you must be more mindful of when you are casting Chaosblitz. Verbrennen will also hold much more value, especially in AoE situations when combined with Feuer und Schwefel. Additionally, it should now be easier to avoid capping your Seelensplitter.

Meisterschaft: Chaotische Energien was reworked. The change lowers our overall ceiling of Mastery, but also raises the floor of Mastery. This means that Mastery should perform much more consistently than it does in 7.2.

These spell changes really bump up the single target capability of Destruction Warlock. Without legendaries, we are performing within 6% of Demonology in single target, with Affliction barely beating us. As soon as a second target is added, Destruction is going to be very powerful.

*Marked as a rounded value.

Talent Changes

Kataklysmus damage was reduced by 25%. However, the cooldown was lowered to 30 seconds, down from 45 seconds. The base cast time was also reduced to 2.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.

Dämonenfeuer kanalisieren received yet another roughly 56% buff. The cooldown was also increased to 25 seconds, up from 15 seconds.

What do these talent changes do? They shift us away from the use of Mächtiger Aderlass in single target and 2 target situations. Entropieumkehrung may be used in progression situations when combined with the new Seele des Netherfürsten ring, to avoid taking damage from using Mächtiger Aderlass. Verwüstung usage must be more thought-out than it is on live. You won't be able to simply take your Verwüstung from one target to the other immediately, as you can now. You must think ahead to when you will need to use Verwüstung and how to maximize it's capability.